When Did You Fall in Love With Education . . . and Yourself? An Ode to Black Women Teachers

• In Event: The Language of Black Girls' Love Lessons: Black Girls’ Teachings on Love Through Literacy

Abstract

In this paper, three Black girls-turned-Black women educators face the challenge of articulating love as we know it. Critically reflecting on our encounters with love in elementary, secondary, and higher education we (re)member Black women educators whose Black feminist love ethics (hooks, 2001) helped to shape our own praxis as future and current teacher educators. Utilizing McKittrick's (2020) Black methodologies as our conceptual framework we employ poetry, love letters, and storytelling to capture the love embodied by Black women educators we know and love. We recognize that love is taboo in K-12 education in the United States owing to practices and policies that emphasize harm and carceral logics (Meiners, 2011). In the same vein as bell hooks (2000), however, we "yearn to end lovelessness" in education. Our ode lauds Black women educators of the past, present, and future who have and continue to labor in love to redress anti-blackness in education and to ensure equitable and humanizing education for all.

Authors

• Jaminque L. Adams, University of Georgia

• Damaris C. Dunn, Drexel University

• Bettina L. Love, Teachers College, Columbia University